A Marquess' Forbidden Desire (Steamy Historical Regency)

by Lucinda Nelson

  The boy gave an experimental push, like he was going to try to get to his feet. Unsurprisingly, he was unsuccessful at it. “I don’t think I can walk,” he said, sounding worried.

  “Of course not,” Charlene said impatiently, pushing him back down with a firm hand on his shoulder. “You stay here. Don’t move.”

  She grabbed his arrows and put them within arm’s reach of him. “Hopefully you won’t see another adder, but if you do, try not to get bit again. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  She didn’t like the idea of leaving him alone there, not in the condition that he was in. She didn’t know what else she could do, though. There was no way that she could get him back to her father’s on her own.

  He might not be a full-grown man just yet, but he was still far taller than Charlene was, and although he was slender, she had a feeling that under those fancy clothes was a body toned from horsemanship, fencing, and other gentlemanly pursuits.

  Charlene couldn’t lift him, and she certainly couldn’t navigate her way over logs and such to get out of here with him draped over her shoulder. She needed her father’s help.

  She ran as fast as her feet could carry her, knowing that in spite of the poultice she had applied, each moment was crucial to the boy’s survival.

  Fortunately, it didn’t take much to find Dr. Ellington. He stared at his daughter’s bedraggled state as she rushed into the apothecary but didn’t say anything as he finished packaging something for Mr. Hennigan. Then, he turned towards his daughter, clucking his tongue.

  “Charlene,” he said disapprovingly.

  “No time for that now, Father,” she interrupted. “There’s a boy out in Raven’s Hollow who needs your help. He was bitten by an adder, and I did what I could, just like you taught me, but he obviously can’t stay there, and I couldn’t get him back here by myself.”

  Father frowned when Charlene mentioned Raven’s Hollow, and she could see a storm brewing in his eyes. She was going to catch hell later, she was sure, but she didn’t care at the moment.

  Her whole world was focused on the boy that she had left behind, with eyes as blue as the depths of the sea.

  “Show me,” the doctor said, grabbing his things and bustling out of the shop. Charlene ran ahead and led him back to where she had left the boy, panicking silently all the while that she wouldn’t be able to find her way back.

  But then, there was that messily-made trail, and there was the boy, looking grey with pain and exhaustion but still conscious.

  He was reciting something under his breath, and for a moment, Charlene thought that maybe he was crazy.

  But then she realized that he was probably afraid to pass out and merely trying whatever he could to keep himself awake.

  Dr. Ellington checked the poultice that his daughter had made and nodded once approvingly. Then, he hefted Eric to his feet, letting him lean against his shoulder.

  Charlene slipped into place on the other side, even though she was sure that the doctor didn’t really need her there to keep the boy on his feet. Still, it helped soothe her own worry to feel like she was being remotely useful.

  It seemed to take an eternity to make it back to the house, but finally, Dr. Ellington was laying the boy down in a cot and administering stronger medicine to him.

  “I should have introduced myself earlier, but I am Dr. Ellington. This is my daughter Charlene. I presume you have family in town?” he asked. “We will send a message to them.”

  Eric’s head lolled as he turned to face the doctor. “Duke of Havenport is my father,” he said weakly.

  Charlene stared at the boy in the bed, and she could tell that her shock was no greater than her father’s. If Duke of Havenport was his father, then assuming that the boy survived his injuries, Charlene had saved the son of a duke.

  Chapter 2

  Lord Eric Cumberland, the son of Duke of Havenport

  Eric felt woozy after his ordeal and after the medicines given to him by Dr. Ellington. As he laid in the cot they had placed him in, he found himself still fighting to stay conscious.

  His pain had faded as the medicines took effect, but that wasn’t his present issue. He knew that his resistance to sleep was partly out of the fear of never walking.

  He had been a fool for going into Raven’s Hollow on his own. He knew that. He had just been hoping to get in a little archery practice on his own.

  He simply wanted real targets, not bales of hay. And a space away from the prying eyes of every other visitor of Bath. Life in the public eye could be so uncomfortably stuffy at times.

  He had barely noticed the adder before it bit a chunk of flesh out of his ankle. The thing had slithered away afterwards, like it had decided that it was no longer interested in him after that first taste.

  Eric knew that probably wasn’t the case, though. The thing had no doubt been waiting for him to succumb to the venom before it finished him off. If it had not been for that girl, he would never have made it.

  Speaking of the girl, Eric could hear the doctor yelling at her now. “You know better than to go out into the wood on your own!” he said. “It’s not seemly, Charlene. And ruining a skirt in the process, what would your mother have said about that?”

  From where he was lying, Eric couldn’t hear Charlene’s response, but he sure could hear the doctor when he picked back up again. “You should never have been out there in the first place. What happens if he succumbs? What do you think the Duke would have to say about that?”

  Eric winced. He knew that it wasn’t his fault that Charlene had been out there in Raven’s Hollow, but he also knew she wouldn’t have been discovered if she hadn’t needed her father’s help in getting him back to Bath. He wondered what the hell had brought her out there in the first place.

  As her father had said, it wasn’t right for her to be out there. Not a woman all on her own. Oh, Eric didn’t care so much about the propriety of it all, which seemed to be the doctor’s main complaint.

  It wasn’t safe, though. Eric’s snakebite was proof of that.

  Granted, he could tell that Charlene was intelligent, and that she knew that wood better than Eric ever could.

  She knew exactly which plants she needed to draw out the poison, and she knew exactly where to find them as well. He couldn’t help but be impressed by that quick thinking and those competent hands of hers.

  The thing that struck him the most though, were those bewitching eyes of hers. They seemed to change from blue to green at a moment’s notice.

  Eric had never seen anything like them before. Everything about her seemed fascinating. Which made him feel even guiltier, for getting her into trouble with her father.

  If it hadn’t been for him needing help out there, she probably would have been able to slip back home unnoticed. Instead, she had risked punishment to help out a stranger.

  Eric swore to himself, right then and there, that he would make it up to her whenever he could. Who knew when that would be, of course, but he would figure something out.

  “He’ll be all right,” Eric heard Charlene say, and he was impressed by the confidence in her voice.

  The doctor sighed. “I sure hope so,” he said. He was quiet for a moment. “You did a good job with that poultice, I have to say. I’m very proud that you applied what I taught you to save the boy’s life.”

  “Thank you,” Charlene said, her voice barely audible.

  “I suppose I ought to go and find Duke of Havenport now,” Dr. Ellington said.

  “Can I trust you to look after him in the meantime? That poultice on his ankle needs to be changed every hour to keep the herbs fresh and to remove any poison that’s been drawn out.”

  “Right,” Charlene said, her tone business-like. “I’ll make sure that he’s all right. And if his fever spikes, I’ll take care of that too.”

  Eric heard the sounds of the doctor gathering his things and leaving the house. He was surprised, for a moment, that the man would leave his daughter alone with him, aft
er all his talk about propriety.

  Not that Eric could do anything to her, though. His whole body felt exhausted, as though it was weighted down to the sheets. Nor did Charlene seem the type to do anything out of line. She would make a competent physician one day, if that was what she chose to do.

  His eyes drifted closed, and Eric suddenly wondered what her plans for the future were. He wasn’t sure why it mattered to him.

  Then, Charlene came into the room, hovering near the door for a moment. Eric could feel her eyes on him. “You should be resting,” she finally said.

  Eric smiled but kept his eyes closed, listening for her footsteps to come closer to the bed. Yet she continued to hesitate. “How do you know I’m not resting?” he finally asked, turning his head to face her.

  “Your breathing isn’t deep enough,” she said matter-of-factly, taking the boy’s open eyes as an invitation to come over to the bed. “Are you still in pain?”

  Eric shook his head. “No,” he promised her. He reached out and took her hand, rubbing his thumb lightly across her smooth, pale knuckles.

  He wasn’t sure why he did that, but it felt somehow right. “I’m very sorry that you got into trouble because of me.”

  Charlene looked shocked. Then, she laughed, the sound as light and musical as that of a babbling brook. “It wasn’t your fault,” she said.

  “I would have gotten into trouble either way. As Father said, I should never have been out there in Raven’s Hollow on my own.”

  “What were you doing out there?” Eric asked curiously. “It’s dangerous.”

  “I know it is,” Charlene said seriously. “But I like going there. For all its danger, it is somehow peaceful. Not to mention useful. I was there gathering herbs to use in medicines.” She paused.

  “But you interrupted my gathering. Father would have discovered me either way though.

  Either because I got his help to bring you here, or because I came in this afternoon with a basket full of herbs.”

  “I suppose that makes sense,” Eric told her. “I still feel guilty.”

  “Don’t worry,” Charlene said, reaching around him to fluff the pillow a little more. “Rest, please. You’re safe now. Father has gone to send word to your father, and I imagine it’s only a short time until a carriage arrives to take you to your home. I’ll be back shortly to change the wrap on your ankle.”

  Eric nodded, forcing himself to relax, to let the exhaustion take him under finally.

  He woke a while later, when Charlene returned to do just as she had promised, her hands deftly removing the original bandaging and replacing it with a fresh one. Eric watched her the whole time, but neither of them spoke.

  Just as she was finishing up, they heard the sounds of footsteps in the front room. The door opened, and the doctor entered, followed by one of Duke of Havenport’s men.

  “How are you feeling, Lord Cumberland?” Dr. Ellington asked Eric, peering over his daughter’s shoulder to check on the boy’s ankle.

  Eric laughed. “Like I won’t be going back to the wood any time soon,” he said, feeling a bit sheepish over the whole thing.

  The doctor smiled. “I’d say that is probably wise,” he said, nodding. “You may still feel some effects of the fever for the rest of the day, but it looks like the swelling has already gone down around the bite, and you have your colour back.”

  “I’m sure that my ankle will be fine,” Eric assured him. “It already feels much better. And as for the rest of it, I have you and your daughter to thank for saving my life, I’m sure. You have my sincerest thanks.”

  There was more that he wished he could say, in particular to Charlene, but he knew he had already embarrassed himself enough for the day.

  Besides, he could tell that social customs were important to the doctor, and anything more could be considered improper.

  They helped Eric to his feet, and he limped out to the carriage, letting them boost him into it. He sat back on the bench, stretching out his injured leg, still feeling the sting of the injury.

  A blushing Charlene stood beside the door to the carriage, and before the duke’s man could close it, she held out a bag. “Medicines,” she said, in response to Eric’s surprised look. “I made them. They should numb the pain and remove the poison. Plus help with the fever if it gets to be too terrible.”

  “Thank you,” Eric said, appreciating the gesture. She smiled up at the boy, and then the door to the carriage was shut and they were on their way back to Duke of Havenport’s.

  Eric was sure that he would catch hell from his father, just like Charlene had caught hell from her own father.

  It had been irresponsible for him to go off like that, and Eric had proven himself nothing but a burden in need of rescuing. He winced just thinking about it.

  He had brought it on himself, though. So he squared his shoulders, knowing that he deserved whatever punishment he received.

  ***

  Two days later

  Eric hated that he had to spend the final two days in the summer home in bed, but his ankle was feeling remarkably better.

  Of course, the skin around the adder’s bite was still tender to the touch and he was keeping it bandaged, but he was walking again and free of fever. Charlene’s medicines had worked magic.

  Eric had thought long and hard about his ordeal over the past couple of days, and he was certain now that he would have been dead if not for her. Charlene had saved his life.

  So he slipped away and sought her out before he and his father left Bath to go back to London. He found her at home by herself. “My father is at a patient’s home,” Charlene said, blushing and shyly ducking her head when she saw the young lord.

  “I won’t ask to come in,” Eric promised her. “I merely wanted to see you one last time before I left Bath, to thank you again for your care. It is because of you that I stand here today, and I want you to know just how much I appreciate that.”

  “It was nothing,” Charlene said, shaking her head. “Just what I’ve been trained to do.”

  The boy shrugged. “It might have been nothing to you, but it meant everything to me,” he told her. “As such, I swear to you that if you ever need anything, anything at all, you must come to me. And we must keep in touch in the future, so that the next time I am back to Bath, I have an escort who knows the dangers of Raven’s Hollow and how to avoid them.”

  Charlene looked amused at that. “Lord Cumberland, I appreciate the offer, but I was only doing what anyone in my situation would have done. I couldn’t very well leave you there to suffer.”

  There was something so sweet about her bashfulness, about her insistence that she hadn’t done anything special. She peered up at Eric through her eyelashes, and he couldn’t get over those eyes, those fascinating blue-green portals into her soul.

  He leaned down and kissed her, gently and chastely, then pulled back. Still, despite the fact that the kiss was nothing more than friendly, he couldn’t help feeling a buzz of desire go through his whole body.

  She wasn’t the first girl that the boy had ever kissed, not that there had been many, but Eric had never felt a reaction like this before.

  He pulled hastily away before things could go any further. Who knew when her father might be back?

  Besides, she was young and innocent, no doubt virginal, and he just couldn’t do that to her. No matter how much he suddenly wished to.

  “Goodbye, Miss Charlene Ellington,” he told her, as she brought her fingertips up to her lips, brushing them lightly against the skin that Eric had just brushed with his own lips.

  She looked shocked, but despite the impropriety of the gesture, she didn’t look scandalized or frightened. Merely curious.

  Eric nodded to her and stepped back, before he could do worse. “Keep in touch,” he said once more, before he turned and left. What was that? Why was he so drawn to her? Eric knew that it didn’t matter, though.

  Even if the girl kept in contact with him, he doubted that he would
see her again. A pity, really.

  She was intelligent and pretty, competent and fearless. But he was the son of a duke, and his place in life and his social circles were strictly predetermined.

  He could exchange letters with Miss Charlene Ellington, daughter of the doctor, savior of his life, but nothing more than that.

  He would have to find a way to be content with that.

  Chapter 3

  Miss Charlene Ellington

  Ten Years later…

  Charlene ran her fingers over the fabric of Miss Matilda’s old dress, already imagining how they could reuse the fabric for the upcoming ball that Matilda wanted to go to.